Industry experience makes someone an expert. Teaching that expertise is a different skill. 7 Red Hills gives workforce educators the training, mentoring, and support they need to turn real-world experience into effective instruction.
Workforce educators often come directly from industry with years of hands-on experience, but little formal training in how to teach.
One platform for alternative certification, continuing education, mentoring, assessment, and required compliance reporting.
CETAC supports alternative certification, while CECCT provides continuing education — all online, self-paced, and available 24/7.
From workforce education and corrections to reentry programs and employee development, 7 Red Hills provides training that can be tailored to your organization's needs.
Workforce education depends on people with real-world expertise — skilled tradespeople, healthcare professionals, technicians, and other industry experts who bring years of experience into the classroom. They know their field, but many have never been formally trained to teach it.
7 Red Hills gives organizations one place to train and support their instructors. From onboarding and teaching fundamentals to professional development and mentoring, the platform can be tailored to your programs and the people you train.
The platform can also support the people working alongside your instructors, including program staff, mentors, supervisors, and employer partners.
One platform for your entire training team.
Talk to us about your training needsCETAC helps state corrections agencies train and certify instructors who come directly from the trades and other industries. The program can be tailored to your state's certification requirements, policies, and reporting needs.
The support continues after initial certification. CETAC can also provide continuing education for recertification, a 12-month mentoring program, and instructor assessment — all in one place.
Talk to us about your state's needsManaging training across multiple facilities shouldn't mean managing multiple systems. CETAC gives private operators one place to train instructors, track progress, and manage requirements across every location.
Each facility can have its own reporting and tracking, while your organization maintains one consistent training program across the entire system. As you add facilities or instructors, the same platform grows with you.
Talk to us about your facilitiesWorkforce and reentry programs often need to show funders who completed training, how many hours were completed, and other program results. CETAC keeps that information organized and easy to report without requiring your organization to build or manage its own learning platform.
Programs can start small with a single course or group of participants, then expand as their training needs grow.
Talk to us about your programCorrectional education involves more than instructors. Officers, case managers, counselors, chaplains, volunteers, administrators, and other staff all play a role in making these programs work.
CETAC can provide short, self-paced training designed for those roles — from understanding how education fits into a correctional setting to working across security and program teams. Training is delivered through the same platform, with completion tracking and reporting in one place.
Talk to us about staff trainingCorrectional and CTE programs face a similar challenge: finding qualified instructors and getting them into the classroom quickly.
You're competing with school districts, technical colleges, and industry for qualified instructors. Long certification processes can make it even harder to hire and keep them.
Traditional teacher preparation isn't always designed for adult learners, career and technical education, or correctional classrooms. Instructors need training that reflects where — and who — they actually teach.
Semester schedules, limited seats, and waitlists can delay training for months. New instructors need a way to begin training when they're hired, not when the next semester starts.
Hiring an instructor is only part of the challenge. When a position stays vacant — or an instructor leaves and has to be replaced — organizations take on the cost of recruiting, hiring, training, and onboarding all over again.
Replacing a teacher in a large district costs an estimated $24,930. Even in smaller districts, turnover creates significant costs for recruiting, hiring, and training a replacement.
In the districts studied, training and preparing a replacement accounted for the largest share of teacher turnover costs. Investing in effective training and support can help organizations get more from the money they are already spending on instructor preparation.
One state corrections agency reported that open education positions had already been vacant for a median of 249 days when measured. Long vacancies can leave programs without the instructors they need to operate consistently.
Teacher turnover isn't limited to correctional education. Nationally, 16% of public-school teachers either changed schools or left the profession between the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years, adding to an already competitive hiring environment.
When instructor positions remain open, programs can't serve as many students. That can mean fewer available classes, longer waitlists, and people leaving custody without receiving the education or training they need.
When education programs are fully staffed, more people can access training — and research shows that correctional education can produce meaningful returns.
Among the types of correctional education examined, vocational education showed the highest return on investment at $3.05 for every dollar spent.
A RAND review found that people who participated in correctional education had 28% lower odds of recidivating than those who did not participate.
One large state system reported an annual operating cost of $34,898 per incarcerated person in FY 2024–25. Keeping education programs staffed is one part of making the most of the resources already invested in correctional facilities.
CETAC prepares industry professionals to become effective instructors in correctional education. The program includes five online, self-paced courses, each approximately 20 hours long. With year-round enrollment, new instructors can begin training when they're hired rather than waiting for the next semester.
Covers how adults learn and the unique challenges of teaching adult learners in a correctional setting.
Introduces practical teaching strategies and classroom management for CTE instructors working in secure facilities.
Covers course development, Bloom's Taxonomy, and alignment with state curriculum requirements.
Focuses on creating measurable objectives, managing class time, and adapting lessons to the correctional environment.
Covers legal requirements, the IEP process, and strategies for supporting students with different learning needs in CTE classrooms.
Support beyond certification: Certification is only the beginning. CECCT provides continuing education for certified instructors, along with a structured 12-month mentoring program and classroom assessment. Continuing education topics include:
CETAC brings the different parts of instructor training and support together in one place. Each layer can be configured around your agency's requirements, content, and branding.
CETAC and CECCT are currently being used to train and support correctional educators across a statewide system. From June through December 2025, instructors completed more than 200 courses and 4,000 hours of training.
| Program | Completions | Training hours |
|---|---|---|
| CETAC | 94 | 1,880 |
| CECCT | 128 | 2,560 |
Instead of paying tuition for each instructor who enrolls, CETAC uses a one-time course development model with unlimited enrollment.
Pricing is customized based on the courses, configuration, and support your organization needs.
7 Red Hills Consulting develops training and professional development programs for organizations that rely on people with real-world experience to teach others.
CETAC was developed in partnership with a state corrections agency and subject-matter experts, including former correctional instructors. That experience shaped how we approach workforce education: training should reflect the people doing the job and the environment where they work.
Today, 7 Red Hills brings that same approach to corrections, career and technical education, apprenticeship programs, workforce development, and other specialized learning environments.
Steven leads program development and agency partnerships at 7 Red Hills. He works directly with correctional agencies, private operators, and education partners to adapt training to their certification requirements, programs, and operational needs.
Schedule a 20-minute walkthrough of the platform, see results from the current statewide program, and talk with us about your agency's certification and training needs.
Schedule a Demo Steven@7redhillsconsulting.com